The fundamentalist earthquake fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front
OW do you analyze
ALGERIA ner in which the voting took place.
H the results of these elections?
(FIS) over the ruling National Liberation
We still do not have the full details of the results. Offi-
Front (FLN) in the Algerian regional and cially, the FIS has won 55% of the municipal elections of June 12 has sent municipalities and 32 wilayas out shock waves through the country and of 46. The FLN says it is in second position, with
30% of the beyond. The following interview with municipalities and 14 wilayas (dis-
Chawki Salhi, spokesperson of the PST tricts), and the Rally for Culture
(Socialist Workers Party) of Algeria, was and Democracy (RCD) is in third position with 5% of the municipalities - the independents, finally, have won some municipalities.
But, in reality, the results of the
FIS are better than this indicates, to the extent that all the big and medium towns have been won by the fundamentalists (with scores of up to 70 or
80%) - the FLN has maintained its influence in the rural municipalities and the hinterland which are less populated and were less affected by the October 1988 riots and their aftermath. The FLN got votes from those who fear the FIS, often even people in the opposition — whereas the FIS has extended its appeal beyond the fundamentalist movement and won support from the popular masses who wanted to show their rejection of the regime. Oran, the biggest city in the west, where the fundamentalists barely exist as an organized force, was won by the FIS.
We don't know yet how many votes this represents, and the rate of abstention high.
was
Abstention has been another key factor in these elections
— the rate of participation was 65%, but it is necessary to recall that these were the first multiparty elections since independence.
That shows the relative success of the boycott campaign waged by sections of the opposition.
• The result of the elec-
PANCHO
THE impressive victory of the conducted on June 19 by Natacha
Monlapin and Cecilia Garmendia.
tions appears as a "protest vote"
FLN. If the nonagainst the fundamentalist opponents of the regime had participated in the elections, instead of calling for a boycott, would that have significantly reduced the level of support for the
FIS?
Only the FLN and the FIS were able to contest the elections on a nationwide basis. Even if it had participated, the
Front of Socialist Forces (FFS), of
Hocine Ait Ahmed', would not have been able to contest all the 1,241 municipalities and fulfil all the administrative formalities. These elections were from the beginning false and unjust - they were held to give a majority to the FLN, on the basis of its national apparatus. Only the FIS was equally capable of contesting all the localities, for it has an organized presence as much in the town as in the countryside.
The regime monopolized television coverage throughout the campaign - the other participants were reduced to a miserable poster campaign on the little official hoardings.
The FIS, however, has held meetings demonstrations and with its members in the towns, the neighbourhoods, and so on.
The government let them do this, thinking that these events would turn the people towards the FLN through fear.
• From the analysis you have put forward, the boycott slogan would seem to have been counterproductive...
It is necessary to take account of the electoral law and the man-
The FIS used a lot of unsavoury methods to boost their vote, but that does not mean they would not in any case have achieved a good result. If the boycott had not taken place, the FFS, the PST, or the others who did not contest the wilayas where they could have fulfilled the administrative conditions, would not have stopped the victory of the FIS - it would perhaps have been less impressive. If the boycott slogan had not been advanced we would be in a position of despair today - the high rate of abstention shows that political reserves exist which have not yet been expressed, and underlines that the electoral law distorts reality. • How do you explain the appeal of the FIS? On the negative side, it can be interpreted as a rejection of the FLN, but on the positive side...
Beyond the factors which underlie the upsurge of such currents around the world, the Algerian fundamentalists have benefitted essentially from the fact that all public political activities were shackled by president Chadli in the year which followed the events of October 19882 -banning of meetings, administrative complications for the legalization of organizations, and so on.
Through the network of the mosques, during this period, the fundamentalists were capable of maintaining a high and very virulent level of propaganda against the regime. This has won them, for example, an important audience in the popular neighbourhoods of Algiers. They take a very radical stance against the regime, whereas the opposition tolerated by the media - who were not muzzled like us - take a very much more moderate tone. When the leader of the FFS, Ait Ahmed, returned to Algiers, he declared that Chadli was "the president of all the Algerians", whilst the FIS, through the mosques, was accusing the FLN of every evil. Since last February, Ait Ahmed has adopted a more vigorous approach, 1. Hocine Ait Ahmed is the founder of the FFS (Front of Socialist Forces). A leader of the FLN during the war of independence, Ait Ahmed went into opposition after independence. The FFS' stronghold is in Kabylia, the Berber region to the east of Algiers, from where Ait Ahmed originates 2. On October 5, 1988, rioting broke out in Algiers and in the rest of the country to protest against price rises in basic necessities. The government declared a state of siege for the first time in the history of the country since independence - the subsequent repression cost more than 500 lives. Chadli restored calm through 21 promising democratic reforms. July 16, 1990 • #189 International Viewpoint
ALGERIA
ALGERIA demanding the election of a constituent assembly, insisting on the rights of women and of Berbers, and so on. The FFS than fundamentalism.
element
There is an enormous revival of spirituality and religious feeling
400mls
Spain
Mediterrinean Sea
Atlantic then engaged in a resolute opposition and its activity extended itself beyond the Kabylia (Berber) areas. But the FIS had a head start, thanks to its anchorage in the popular quarters of Algiers, in particular, which went further back, and because it was identified with the events of October.
On this subject, it is necessary to note that the international media continue to claim that the victims of October were Islamic fundamentalists, which is false! Those tortured and imprisoned as a result of the riots were above all militants of the left, of the Party of the Socialist Vanguard (PAGS, the Algerian Communist Party) - the Islamic forces were miniscule at this time. But because of the absence of a plausible alternative at the end of 1988, they stepped into the vacuum with big demonstrations against torappeared above all as the party of the people of the most deprived quarters of Algeria - this image has contributed to the
The FLN, for its part, has suffered a terrible blow in the last period, when the misappropriation of $26 million by a former prime minister of the regime was made public — it has attempted to coun ter this campaign by pointing to the acts of violence committed by the fundamentalists, notably against women. This very virulent campaign momentarily isolated the fundamentalists, including in the popular neighbourhoods. But their demonstration on May 17, 1990 which was enormous — only the FLN was able to do better, after the event — led to a terrified somersault by the regime; it understood that people were strongly attracted by the fundamentalists. The regime ran a very awkward electoral campaign, announcing that it had "returned". This has led to a renewed rejection of the FLN, which we can see now, burying the fear of the FIS which had predominated until then. • Faced with the corruption of the regime, the FIS was able to use a moral argument - with a religious content.
Rejection of the government was central to the vote for the FIS; the corruption of the FLN, but also the desire for liberty, for sovereignty, in short the democratic factors. Paradoxically it is an authoritarian and retrogressive current which has attracted the votes of those who wish to see the end of the dictatorship. At the electoral level, the FIS has achieved a level of support going well beyond those who subscribe to an Islamic discourse.
There exists, obviously, a hard Islamic core which has a moral discourse and which demands the application of the 22 feeling is a very much more importan Sharia, the Islamic law - but religious International Viewpoint #189 • July 16, 1990 in Algeria today, going beyond even those who voted for the FIS. press claim?
There is a hard fundamentalist core inside the FIS which does not correspond to its very much wider electoral impact. At the level of the FIS leadership, there exists a very clear difference between, on the one hand, Ali Belhadj, one of the most popular orators in the poor neighbourhoods, who bases himself on the revolt of the young unemployed, the dispossessed, and so on, and whose stance against the regime is very radical; and on the other hand, Abassi Madani and other notables who are very more moderate and would be ready to make a deal with the regime. The electoral victory has reinforced the Madani current. The wave of violence which shook Algeria last April — against cinemas, young women and so on — was the work of a radical fundamentalist tendency which did not accept the electoral caution advocated by Madani. But in the euphoria today, there is no contesting Madani's predominance - those who preach a "democratic" and conciliatory attitude have carried the day. • What attitude is the regime going to take towards the FIS? And vice versa? Will the parliamentary elections that the fundamentalists are demanding be held?
Public opinion is very shocked, there are a lot of rumours, and there is no longer any political expression, from the FIS or the FLN. The strike of newspaper distributors has aggravated the contusion. But in the neighbourhoods, the militants of the FIS are reappearing — for example, during the strike of roadsweepers in Algiers, their supporters have swept the streets. Some street demonstrations have taken place in certain areas, but all this has had little echo and there is no sense of any particular tension.
The FIS is demanding the dissolution of the assembly and new parliamentary elections. But the leaders of the FIS explain that this is not equivalent to a demand that Chadli should go — they do not want to be perceived as being so aggressive for the moment.
Chadli, some maintain, would be ready for a cohabitation with the FIS — according to others, he wants a broad "coalition" with the FIS, a sort of "presidential majority". It is not yet known where all this will lead. In any case, the intention of the FLN is to discredit the forces which appealed for a boycott and to push forocear Oran ALGIERS TuRNI Morocco
Libya
Mali Niger
Africa : Atlantic Ocean ward the RCD - which, for its part, would be in the forefront of this alliance
Ait Ahmed has also the intention of creating an alliance, a third force, which would appear as a bourgeois democratic alternative to both the fundamentalists and the regime, but he does not dispose of the necessary means of propaganda and suffers from demoralization among those of his supporters frightened by the result of the boycott. If the parties defeated in the elections (the RCD, the PAGS, and so on) regroup, they could become a true force of support for the FLN and permit the regime to maintain itself. This is opposed, obviously, to the project of Ait
As for Ben Bella, he has the declared project of regrouping everybody, including the FIS, and playing a Bonapartist
The tendency is towards polarization around the big blocs which have emerged from these elections (on the one hand the FLN, and on the other the FIS). It will be necessary to work hard to shatter the popular idea of the FIS as a democratic alternative — only a secular social radicalism can expose the doubletalk of the fundamentalists and detach the youth from • Do you rule out a democratic alliance with the forces which are not part of the regime, like the FFS?
The PST has always declared itself ready for an alliance in action with all progressive forces on precise democratic questions — we have even worked with certain elements close to the regime in defence of the right of women to work. We could constitute a front for the monitoring of the next elections, or to demand changes in the electoral law. But an elec-